The Blue, The Gray and The Red

By Thom Hatch

Expert Author:Thom Hatch is an award-winning American author and novelist who specializes in the history of the American West, the American Civil War, and the Plains Indian Wars. He is the author of twelve books including Black Kettle: the Cheyenne Chief Who Sought Peace But Found War, for which he received the Spur Award for literary excellence from the Western Writers of America.

Indigenous Peoples – The first book dedicated solely to chronicling the numerous campaigns waged against the American Indians during the Civil War.

American Civil War - American Civil War buffs will enjoy this detailed look into the lesser known events surrounding the American Civil War

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Apr 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781684424559

Thom Hatch

Thom Hatch is a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran and an award-winning American author and novelist who specializes in the history of the American West, the American Civil War, and the Plains Indian Wars. He is the author of twelve books, including The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Custer Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Life of George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indians Wars, and Black Kettle: the Cheyenne Chief Who Sought Peace But Found War, for which he received the Spur Award for literary excellence from the Western Writers of America. Hatch lives in Colorado with his wife and daughter.

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INTRODUCTION

Tucked away in relatively obscure and scattered pages of Civil War history, overshadowed by the microscopic focus on Eastern battles, can be found some of the most dramatic and tragic, yet least known, events of that conflict—those desperate struggles between the white man and the Indian that occurred throughout the frontier West during the years 1861-65.

This subject, other than books about specific high-profile events, such as the Sand Creek Massacre, heretofore has been treated as if the Indians simply hibernated and westward migration halted while the war raged in the East. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, it can be stated as fact that more whites and Indians were killed in the West during those four years than in any other comparable period in American history.

Some of the most captivating, controversial, and noteworthy engagements ever waged between those two races—featuring a fascinating cast of colorful characters, both famous and lesser known—occurred on the frontier while the eyes of the nation were shielded by concerns in the East.

The Blue, the Gray, and the Red presents an accurate, balanced portrayal of these hostilities as undermanned and inexperienced Union and Confederate soldiers, state militiamen, common citizens, and bands of adventurers from Minnesota and Utah Territory to the regions of the Great Plains and the Southwest were called upon to contend with the native Red Man—and vice versa, for at times it is difficult to distinguish heroes from villains.

In certain cases, it was as if the Indians were being prodded with a sharp stick until instinct and self-preservation compelled them to strike back. In other instances, the Indians took advantage of abandoned forts when regular army troops were sent East and responded with violence to the presence of the white man in their homeland.

One aspect, however, becomes quite clear as the campaigns unfold. The toll of human loss and suffering on both sides due to these encounters is perhaps unparalleled, often beyond comprehension, and proves that savagery is not reserved for any one particular race of mankind.

The significance of this period of conflict on the Western frontier cannot be understated. When the guns fell silent in the East and peace prevailed, there was no truce to hostilities in the West. The army would experience twenty more years of warfare against the Indians, and every battle and every drop of blood that was shed was a direct result of operations conducted during the Civil War.

ONE

THE FLIGHT OF OPOTHLEYAHOLA

At the outbreak of the Civil War, pledges of loyalty to either the North or the South created divisions among people who had previously shared the same history, if not the same blood. This pitting of brother against brother and neighbor against neighbor tore apart families, destroyed relationships, and divided communities in many parts of the country.

The discord and schism between resolute people with opposing points of view, however, were not reserved solely for the white man in the East. It also occurred within one particular tribe of Native Americans and would result in a winter of bitterness and violence. An abundance of blood would be spilled, and much suffering would be endured by thousands of men, women, and children before the issue was tragically settled.

Admittedly, the tribe involved already had been engaged for decades in a simmering internal feud of sorts within its ranks. The contrary allegiances embraced by two factions within the tribe would now serve as a convenient reason to enable one group to take advantage of the circumstances and exact revenge against the other, with assistance from white and red allies.

In 1861, when the Southern states seceded and the North stood firm, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) became what could be called a buffer zone between the Confederate states of Arkansas and Texas and the Union state of Kansas and the territories of Colorado and New Mexico. This area was populated for the most part by Native American people, members of what were called the Five Civilized Tribes—Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. These tribes some years earlier had been resettled in Indian Territory from various locations within the South. Most had adopted a lifestyle based on Southern traditions, such as the practice of slavery. For that reason, the vast majority of these Native Americans, many of whom were successful plantation owners, were sympathetic to the Southern cause for fear of losing their valuable property, slaves in particular.

There existed, however, treaties between these tribes and the United States, and most members were dependent on the promised food and supplies granted them by the provisions. Also, there was some doubt about whether the South could provide for them in the same manner as the North. And another problem was that the recently replaced Federal agent was an ardent secessionist from Alabama, and the newly appointed replacement was unable to make contact with the tribes from his post in Kansas. That lack of communication from a representative of the divided United States would soon become a moot point when the disposition of troops in the area was settled.

The question of garrisoning Union soldiers in Indian Territory was addressed in early 1861. Fort Gibson had been abandoned four years earlier and turned over to the Cherokee nation. The several remaining garrisons, including Fort Arbuckle, Fort Cobb, and Fort Washington, were relatively small and isolated, and therefore vulnerable to an attack. Union colonel William H. Emery had been dispatched in March with orders to assume command at Fort Cobb and determine the prudence of leaving troops at the various posts. Events that occurred during his journey through Indian Territory, however, would dictate Emery’s decision.

Confederate Texas volunteer units were sweeping the area. When Emery passed through Fort Washita and removed the garrison for fear of an attack, he was unexpectedly joined by all the troops from Fort Arbuckle, who also were worried about the advancing Texans. Within days, a courier reached Emery as he led his fleeing Union soldiers toward Fort Cobb. Emery was notified that Fort Cobb had already been evacuated, and he was instructed to march without delay for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The Yankees changed course and, with the Texas Confederates hot on their heels, eventually reached their destination without contact being made.

The Southern soldiers, satisfied that their enemy posed no further threat, assumed occupation of all the abandoned forts, as well as complete military control of Indian Territory. The Union had for all intents and purposes surrendered this vast area to the Confederacy without a shot being fired.

The South immediately sought to arrange treaties with the various Native American tribes. Albert Pike was a native of Boston and presently a prominent Arkansas lawyer, planter, teacher, trader, and journalist with the Little Rock Advocate. Pike was thought to be an ideal envoy. He had already earned the trust of the Creek Nation before the war by representing it in a lawsuit against the U. S. government and winning an $800,000 judgment. He was dispatched in June 1861 as commissioner to the Cherokee capital at Tahlequah with orders to negotiate alliances with the Five Nations.

Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch, a former neighbor of David Crockett who had fought for Texas independence in the 1836 battle of San Jacinto, had been placed in command of Indian Territory. McCulloch accompanied Albert Pike on the initial contact with the tribes in June 1861, when the envoy began his task by contacting John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokees.

The seventy-one-year-old Ross, a wealthy land and slave owner who was only one-eighth Cherokee, had a long and distinguished career within tribal politics. He had served with the Pro-United States White Stick Creeks during the War of 1812; had been a member of the Cherokee Council’s National Committee; elected president of the Cherokee Constitutional Convention; and he had maintained leadership of the majority element of his tribe since 1828. Ross’s wife had died on the long-forced march from Georgia to Indian Territory when his tribe had been relocated and, ironically, she had been buried in a cemetery plot in Arkansas owned by Albert Pike, who had become friends with the chief.

That close association over the years, however, did not help Pike in his effort to negotiate a treaty with Ross and the Cherokee. Chief Ross informed a disappointed Pike and McCulloch that his tribe would adhere to the treaties it had made with the Federal government and would therefore remain neutral with respect to the war.

The primary rival to Ross for leadership within the tribe was fifty-five-year-old Stand Watie, who was three-quarters Cherokee, a successful planter who had been well-educated in Tennessee. Between the years 1839 and 1846 dozens of political murders occurred within the Cherokee nation and it was known that Watie was involved in a portion of this treachery. In 1843 he killed a man who was rumored to have been one of the murderers of Watie’s uncle, cousin, and brother. After a tense Cherokee trial, Watie was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Stand Watie, however, had reason to dislike John Ross. During this political turmoil, Ross had been on the opposite side of loyalties from Watie and, although Ross himself was never directly implicated, one of Ross’s sons later admitted that he had killed Watie’s brother.

Stand Watie, therefore, was biding his time for the moment when Ross either died or made a mistake that would loosen his grip on tribal leadership and open the door for Watie to burst through and become principal chief of the Cherokee people. Watie had already embraced the Confederate cause and was in the process of raising and training a force of mixed-blood Cherokee cavalry to fight for the South.

Ross understood that the Confederates, in the person of his friend Albert Pike, could conceivably remove him from office and replace him with Watie. But for the time being, perhaps to delay his final decision while he watched developments, he was adamant that his tribe would remain neutral.

Pike departed from the Cherokees empty handed and moved south across the Arkansas River to negotiate with the Creeks. General McCulloch returned to Fort Smith, after warning John Ross that if a Union invasion became imminent, I will at once advance into your country, if I deem it advisable. Pike and McCulloch were comforted in one sense, however, that they could depend on support from Stand Watie and his cavalry.

The Creeks would prove to be another tribe that would pose a problem for Pike’s effort to form a united Indian Confederacy. The Creeks through the years, even before their removal from Georgia and Alabama to Indian Territory, had split into two distinct factions: the mixed-bloods and the full-bloods.

The terms mixed-blood and full-bloods may be offensive to some, but that was the accepted characterization that separated the factions at that point in time and therefore will be respectfully used throughout this narrative. By the same token, the word Indian will be used throughout the book to describe the people we now call Native Americans.

The mixed-bloods had embraced the lifestyle of Southern planters. They dressed in the finery of gentlemen and wore their long hair curled at the ends in cavalier fashion and had the vision of transforming the Creek Nation into more refined and genteel standards. This faction also had been responsible for arranging the earlier sales of the Eastern tribal land and the removal of the tribe to the West.

The full-bloods, on the other hand, shunned most aspects of the Southern way of life and remained loyal to their traditional beliefs. This faction had been outraged at what they considered a betrayal by the mixed-bloods with the treaty that years before had cost them their land in Georgia and Alabama. Members of both groups, however, had greatly profited from the practice of slavery, with many owning large plantations.

Albert Pike managed to gain signatures on his Creek treaty on July 10, 1861 at North Fork Town by negotiating exclusively with mixed-blood tribal leaders Chilly and Daniel N. McIntosh, who were half-brothers.

Chilly McIntosh had been born in Georgia about 1800, the eldest son of Creek principal chief William McIntosh. He was among the first of his tribe to move west to Indian Territory in 1828, and quickly became a political and military leader. Despite his advanced age at the outbreak of the Civil War he was willing and able to serve on active military duty.

Thirty-nine-year-old Daniel also had been born in Georgia, the youngest son of William McIntosh, and educated at Smith Institute in Tennessee. In 1830 he had come by boat to Fort Gibson and settled with his family on lands between the Verdigris and Grand Rivers. Daniel, who was a Baptist minister, would establish his own plantation near Fame in present McIntosh County, Oklahoma, and became a respected politician, serving as a member of the Creek Nation’s House of Warriors and Supreme Court.

This treaty with the Confederacy signed by the McIntosh brothers on behalf of the Creeks proved far more favorable to the tribe than any it had ever signed with the United States. The annuities remained the same as in the Treaty of 1856—$71,960—but along with other concessions, slavery was legalized and placed under Creek jurisdiction. In return for the favorable provisions, the Creeks agreed to furnish a regiment of mounted soldiers, either alone or in conjunction with the Seminoles, which would serve at the pleasure of the Confederate army but only fight within the borders of Indian Territory.

The full-blood faction of the Creeks was not represented at this meeting with Albert Pike, but they would make its intentions known in the very near future.

Pike then met with the Chickasaws and the Choctaws, who resided in the southern part of Indian Territory, near the Red River border with Texas. These two tribes were eager to support the South and agreed to raise a mounted regiment to fight for their new allies. The Seminoles were at first reluctant to sign a treaty, but Pike was assisted by influential leader John Jumper, who promised participation by a force of warriors who would join the Creek regiment. Jumper, the forty-one-year-old father of seven who had worked for years on the Seminole Tribal Council, would be designated head chief of the Confederate Seminoles and serve as major of the Mounted Seminole Volunteers.

Meanwhile, Cherokee leader John Ross had a change of heart. Ross was aware that the Confederates had routed the Union army back east at Bull Run, or Manassas, and it appeared to have seized the upper hand with respect to winning the war. Besides that, General McCulloch had commissioned Stand Watie a colonel in the Confederate provisional army and assigned his Cherokee regiment duty patrolling the northeastern part of Indian Territory. Ross addressed a meeting of his tribe, saying: The State on our border (Arkansas) and the Indian Nations about us have severed their connection with the United States and joined the Confederate States. Our general interest is inseparable from theirs and it is not desirable that we should stand alone.

The tribe abided by Ross’s words and agreed to supply a regiment of Home Guards, which would be led by Colonel John Drew. Drew was Chief John Ross’s nephew, married to the chief’s niece. As the owner of several salt works and a few slaves, he was regarded as a rich man in the Cherokee Nation. Drew, along with Ross, had fought on the side of the United States against pro-British Creeks during the War of 1812, and then he had served as the Canadian District’s senator. He was a confirmed secessionist, who had formed a company of men that had been patrolling the district for some years in search of escaped slaves, guarding against abolitionists, and compelling all Negroes to know their places.

By this time, Pike had drawn up a constitution creating the United Nations of the Indian Territory, a Native American confederacy that consisted of a Grand Council, which was composed of delegates from each tribe that would meet annually at North Fork Town. Ambitious Mississippian Colonel Douglas Hancock Cooper was appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Cooper, who had the reputation as a hard drinker, had been an agent to the Choctaws and Chickasaws before the war and was a friend of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Although there was some minor disenchantment and disagreement within the tribes, Pike was confident when he departed Indian Territory in October to present the treaties to the Confederate Senate in Richmond that the Five Nations were solidly on the side of the South. Pike, however, had perhaps underestimated the influence of one prominent Creek leader who had been conspicuously absent from the treaty negotiations with his tribe.

Opothleyahola was an older, perhaps elderly (his age has been noted as being from the early sixties to the eighties), full-blooded Creek chief and wealthy plantation owner. This distinguished man, whose name, meaning Good Shouting Child in Creek has been mentioned in various texts as Opothle Yahola, Opuithli Yahola, Opuithi Yahola, Apothleyahola, Opothleyohola, Hopothleycholo, Hupueheth Yaholo, as well as several other spellings. He was a fierce traditionalist with an anti-Southern attitude and had counseled his people to remain neutral with respect to the white man’s war.

Over the years, Opothleyahola had played a major role in the history of the Creek people. He was a veteran of the intertribal Creek War of 1813-14 (fought during the War of 1812), serving under Red Eagle (William Weatherford) with the Upper Creek pro-British Red Sticks who fought against Andrew Jackson and the Lower Creek pro-United States White Sticks. Later, he displayed great oratory skills and became primary speaker for the Upper Creek towns in opposing negotiations over tribal land, and therein was the main reason for his present conflict with tribal leaders over the Pike treaty.

It had been former principal chief William McIntosh, the leader of the Lower Creeks, the White Sticks who had allied with Andrew Jackson, who had agreed in 1825 to the removal of the tribe from their homelands in Georgia and Alabama and signed the treaty that banished the Creeks to their present location in Indian Territory.

Opothleyahola, as well as other Upper Creeks, had vehemently opposed this land cession. In 1825, Opothleyahola had been a member of a tribal delegation that met in Washington with President John Quincy Adams that had reluctantly agreed to ceding tribal lands. Nevertheless, his Upper Creeks, who lived in towns on the upper tributaries of the Chattahoochee River, refused to leave even after most of the Lower Creeks had relocated.

Meanwhile, in 1828 William McIntosh was brutally murdered in retaliation for his betrayal of the Creeks by signing that treaty three years earlier. It was said that Menawa, a second chief of the Okfuskee towns, and a number of other Upper Creeks had conspired to carry out this assassination.

Opothleyahola headed another delegation in 1832 that met with President Jackson and once again agreed to the treaty. Rather than move, however, Opothleyahola attempted to buy land in Mexico for his people but was rebuffed by the Mexican government. Finally, in 1836, Opothleyahola led about 27,000 people to settle in Indian Territory, where he assumed a leadership role of the reunited tribal faction and encouraged traditional customs among his tribe. He personally owned about 2,000 acres of land near North Fork Town, which was worked by slaves.

A dangerous discord existed between the mixed-blood McIntosh brothers and full-blooded Opothleyahola. This animosity had festered through the years not merely because the brothers were the sons of William McIntosh, who had signed away ancestral lands and fought opposite the old chief in the Creek War, but because it was rumored (and likely true) that Opothleyahola had been one of the conspirators who had murdered the elder McIntosh.

As might be imagined, the influence of Opothleyahola within the tribe created constant tension, which bordered on violence, between the full-blooded leader and the mixed-blood half-brothers Chilly and Daniel. The McIntosh brothers, in addition to disapproving of their rival’s pagan beliefs, were well aware that Opothleyahola had likely played a role in the murder of their father years earlier. They would welcome any opportunity to seek revenge on this old man. And the chief was not ignorant of this sentiment, which likely was a factor in his decision to oppose the position of the brothers.

Opothleyahola was disturbed by the signing of the Pike treaty with the Confederacy that William McIntosh’s offspring had initiated, particularly the raising of a pro-Southern Creek regiment. He feared that his people might be subject to armed reprisals by the Lower Creeks, and therefore he vowed to remain loyal to the Union.

In August, Opothleyahola retired to his plantation near North Fork Town and, along with Chief Oktarharsars Harjo, also known as Sands, wrote a letter to President Abraham Lincoln requesting protection by the United States under the Treaty of 1856. This plea by Opothleyahola would not reach Washington for almost a month.

In the meantime, Colonel Douglas Cooper made an effort to contact the dissident group with intentions of smoothing over the relationship between the McIntoshes and Opothleyahola, but the old chief apparently refused to meet with him. Cooper grew worried that Opothleyahola had been in contact with Federal authorities in Kansas and was preparing to ally his people with the Union.

Opothleyahola had indeed been in contact with a U. S. commissioner in Kansas but he was less than convinced by the promises that Union soldiers would any time soon expel the Rebels from Indian Territory. Cooper made additional efforts to talk to the chief but was repeatedly snubbed. The colonel became concerned that the slaves who were with the Upper Creeks were by now likely armed and had the potential to initiate a slave revolt that could spread throughout the South. Finally, the frustrated Cooper declared that he would march against the dissidents and either compel submission to the treaty or drive them from the territory.

Cooler heads tried to prevail. Albert Pike offered Opothleyahola the opportunity to form a battalion of soldiers exclusively from his followers to fight for the Confederacy. Respected Chief John Ross wrote a plea asking the Creek chief to avoid bloodshed at all costs. Opothleyahola, however, stubbornly refused to parley with anyone who represented the Confederacy.

Opothleyahola also caught wind of Cooper’s plans for armed intervention and decided that his only logical course of action was to remove his people from the hostile environment before it was too late. If Northern support in the form of troops for protection would not come to him, he would go to them. Opothleyahola would lead an exodus to Kansas, where he hoped that his followers would find relative safety under the protection of Union forces.

James Scott of Greenleaf Town, who was ten years old at the time, remembered: Opuithi Yahola’s heart was sad at all the war talk. He visited the homes of his followers or any of the Indians and gave them encouragement to face all these things, but above all things to stay out of the war. It was no affair of the Indians.

Opothleyahola directed his people to prepare stores of food, collect their property and livestock, and gather in a camp situated near his plantation at the junction of the North Fork and Deep Fork rivers, near present Eufala, Oklahoma.

The loyal full-blooded Creeks heeded this respected man’s call, as did a small number of Seminoles, Kickapoos, Shawnees, Delawares, Wichitas, Comanches, and perhaps 200 to 400 former slaves. At least 5,000 Native Americans—men, women, and children—readied their wagons, oxcarts, and all their possessions for the prospect of a most arduous and likely perilous journey. About 2,000 of them were warriors, armed with hunting rifles, shotguns, and bows and arrows, who would form the fighting force, if needed.

On November 5, 1861, Creek chief Opothleyahola broke camp with his caravan of horses, wagons, and herds and headed north up the Deep Fork River to seek sanctuary for his people in Kansas.

This was quite a spectacle of sight and sound that Chief Opothleyahola had orchestrated. Hundreds of wagons loaded down with farm and household items, axels creaking under the burden, lumbered across the prairie. Horses and cattle, more accustomed to meandering around a pasture to graze, were driven forward in small and large herds. Other livestock—hogs, goats, and sheep—free from the confinement of a pen were confused and stubborn and had a tendency to rebel or stray and had to be forced to move at the pace of the wagon train. Loose dogs were virtually everywhere, scampering to and fro around the line of wagons and carts and were a constant nuisance as they engaged in noisy, vicious disagreements or tried to get into food supplies. All the various animals loudly protested their present indignities, filling the chilly air with whinnies, and brays, and angry snorts to accompany the threats and coaxing of their handlers who were usually children who had assumed additional responsibilities in this time of great distress.

And then there were the adults, thousands of them, who had been uprooted from the warmth and security of their snug homes to be thrust out into the barren prairie to face an uncertain future. Every one of them was apprehensive and looked for encouragement and comfort from the man whom they had trusted for so long as their leader and advisor.

Through it all, Opothleyahola was a calm and confident leader, who certainly had called upon all the mental and spiritual resources and experience that he had accumulated over the years. These were his people, and he cared about them. The old chief vowed to do everything within his power to avoid any conflict with the Confederates and complete this seemingly impossible journey with the least amount of hardship and suffering.

Colonel Cooper quickly learned of Opothleyahola’s intentions, as well as the time of departure. He was determined to put down this uprising for fear that other Native Americans may question their loyalty to the Confederacy and join the exodus. That troubling thought was combined with the fact that a sizeable number of slaves were accompanying the Native Americans and it was not out of the question that they could in some manner spark a rebellion among the slave population.

Cooper hurriedly assembled a force of about 1,500 troopers. This force included a battalion of the 9th Texas Cavalry (500 white men), under Lieutenant Colonel William Quayle; six companies of the 1st Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles; the 1st Creek Cavalry regiment, under Colonel Daniel McIntosh; and the 1st Seminole Cavalry Battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel Chilly McIntosh and Major John Jumper.

On November 16, with dragon’s breath shooting from the mouths and nostrils of their horses and gray, cloudy skies above, the column rode out of old Fort Gibson. They forded the Arkansas River and turned westward toward the Deep Fork of the Canadian in pursuit of the dissident Creeks.

The stage was now set for a civil war within a civil war.

On that November 16, Confederate scouts easily located the trail of Opothleyahola’s slow-moving procession. For the next three days, the soldiers doggedly closed the gap. Opothleyahola, however, so craftily maneuvered his people through the frosty, rolling prairie that the scouts from time to time would lose the trail. This would require Colonel Cooper to call for a halt while fresh sign was sought. Several Creek stragglers were captured on November 19, and it was learned that some of the loyalist Creeks were camped just west of the confluence of the Arkansas and Cimarron rivers. Cooper eagerly drove his men forward. At about 4:00 p. m. scouts spotted smoke from a number of campfires.

Lieutenant Colonel Quayle and his Texans, who collectively let out a spontaneous whoop at the prospect of a fight, were ordered to charge this camp. They readily complied, but upon arrival the horsemen were disappointed to find the encampment abandoned. Quayle then ordered his men forward and they raced ahead for four miles until observing fresh wagon tracks that disappeared into a line of leafless trees near two flat-topped mounds known as Round Mountain, near present-day Yale in Payne County. The excited Texans charged the timber, confident that their prey was now at their mercy.

Opothleyahola, however, had deployed his warriors in the timber and they patiently waited for the aggressive horsemen to appear within range of their rifles and bows. When the time was right, the concealed Creek and Seminole marksmen unleashed a furious barrage of rifle and shotgun fire. The ambush was executed to perfection.

Quayle’s lead squadron, seventy men led by Captain M. J. Brinson, was raked by this fusillade—with one man killed instantly—and the Confederates were momentarily stopped in their tracks. Many riders were thrown from their mounts and would have to fight the rest of the way on foot when the wild-eyed animals raced away. The Creeks also employed an old Native American fighting trick of sending out a pony chased by dogs in an effort to cause a stampede, which added to the confusion. Captain Brinson rallied his men and was joined by two other companies, captains Berry and McCool with about eighty men, riding to his right and left in support.

The pro-Union Creeks, who outnumbered the Texans, maintained their position while raining constant fire, which greatly discouraged the attackers. The bugler finally sounded retreat and the Confederates pulled back, with Opothleyahola’s warriors pressing forward to harass them.

By this time, Colonel Cooper had arrived on the field but decided that it was growing too dark and it would be folly to blindly